Of Glad Rags, Gargoyles & Gin Mills

March 6, 2007 by jack petrie.

 I often say that one of the perks of working in commercial real estate in NYC is that a broker doesn’t just deal in properties, but in landmarks & icons.

Having recently subleased a client’s floor in the tower, I’ve come to understand how no other property in the world occupies a higher place in our emotional landscape than 405 Lexington Avenue, famously known as the Chrysler Building.

Having worked in the building in 2003, I certainly know its flaws: landmarked obsolescences such as wind-whipped window frames, outmoded plumbing, creaky elevators.  (The two most bizarre days of the year were the semiannual treks of the window washers to our floor - to climb outside the 47th floor facade, supported by a mere canvas belt, to manually wash each window’s exterior and thereby juxtaposing their career’s unique combination of monotony and danger.)

Everyone has a Chrysler Building story:

• From the historic - Chrysler was constructed from 1928-1930, and during a race to momentarily occupy the status as World’s Tallest Building, the seven-story, 185 foot spire was secretly delivered to the site in sections, assembled inside the elevator shaft, and hoisted through a roof opening in a matter of hours to claim the crown (from 40 Wall Street, currently, The Trump Building), but only until the completion of the Empire State Building the following year. 
• Chrysler also claimed its status in 1930 as the World’s Tallest Man-Made Structure from The Eiffel Tower.
• Chrysler remains the largest brick building in the world and was the first large building to extensively use exterior metalwork.
• Chrysler was home to the studio of LIFE Magazine’s first female photojournalist, Margaret Bourke-White, whose photography of the gargoyles and spires remain classics today.
• Chrysler was commissioned by Chrysler Company founder Walter P. Chrysler and would later become the North American HQ of Daimler-Chrysler, who would never occupy the property and who would eventually buyout of their lease obligation (at a rumored 100% of their fully escalated rent obligation.)
• Chrysler’s ornamentations on the tower and setbacks reference the era of the automobile, with metal hubcaps, radiator cap gargoyles, car fenders, and hood ornaments.  Additionally, the interior ceiling fresco depicts scenes from the Chrysler assembly line.
• To the mundane - the lobby security will tell you endless stories of the daily visits by tourists to the front desk asking for directions to the observation deck.

No better conversational icebreaker exists than this property.  My mother’s 80-year old husband and I share the experience of working in this building (a floor apart) at different times.  No other building spans generations like the Chrysler Building. 

No other building has such a place in of American history.

At the time of it’s construction, $75 dollars would equate to three weeks pay for the average worker and would bring home two washing machines.

Today it buys a square foot of real estate on the 57th floor.

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